


Hereafter

by BumblebeeArmour



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: But creative license and all, Crowley tries to figure out his feelings, Crowley's pov, Gen, This also probs won't match what people think crowley actually feels, This may read more like a ramble than an actual fic because I wrote it all in one go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 00:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19120537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BumblebeeArmour/pseuds/BumblebeeArmour
Summary: Crowley once thought he could love Aziraphale. It was after all, his actions that made him different from the other angels. He thought, you know, if I'd ever have a match, this would be it, and then immediately hated himself for the thought.





	Hereafter

**Author's Note:**

> I am currently halfway through the Good Omens book so this is mostly based on the show. Great show, loved it, planning to rewatch it again at some point. Yeah this fic is basically Crowley being all introspective. Essentially the fic wrote itself a lot less painfully than any description I'm trying to write right now so I'm just going to leave it there.

Crowley isn't sure demons _can_ love.

He's appreciated many people over the six millennia he's lived through. He's looked at humans sometimes and thought about how attractive a few of them were, only to turn around and realise that the motorcycle across the street looked just as attractive in the same exact way as the young man making eyes at him across the bar. He'd stand up and leave then, chalking it up to just another demon thing, and steal the Harley as an afterthought.

He's had an aesthetic appreciation of humans before but it was never about their looks, but about what they could do. Artists, writers, ice skaters, artisans, they were all beautiful in their own way. He loved their work, their talent and dedication, and the people themselves were only secondary to what they could do. He'd spoken and even made tenuous friends of some of them but they'd never - well - _connected_. He was always sad when they died in that vague sort of way when you think it's such a waste that talented bright people you were meticulously keeping tabs on were no longer there.

Crowley once thought he could love Aziraphale. It was after all, his actions that made him different from the other angels. He thought, you know, if I'd ever have a match, this would be it, and then immediately hated himself for the thought. He'd never experienced the kind of love that tragic poets would write sonnets about, that would make people commit suicide just because their love interest didn't love them back. It's because you're rotten, whispered the treacherous thoughts in his ears on cold dark nights, you've fallen, demons aren't supposed to feel affection nor love. Love is a foreign concept that seems like an all-too-human thing, and Crowley, is centuries older, vastly more powerful, and anyway, despite their innovations (Hell is, sadly, in permanent stasis), he doesn't want to become like the mortals. He chalks up any thoughts of sentiment to being stuck for wayyy too long on this godforsaken-yet-familiar rock. Sentiment isn't the way to go about it, he thinks. He doesn't need anyone, but after reading so much about this alleged sentiment, he almost feels deprived. Crowley stops reading books shortly afterwards, but he'd never been able to stop himself from thinking (there was a reason he had fallen when he did) and every now and again he feels so terribly lonely and doesn't quite know what to do with the feeling.

When "Somebody to Love" plays from his car what feels like a whole eternity later just as his closest link to anything like _that_ had died, it feels like some divine deity is playing a terrible joke. It could be the Almighty, she'd never possessed tact for as long as he'd known her. It could be that his car has picked up his brand of particularly dark humour after several decades together. (On an ordinary day, he'd be delighted at the thought, but a glance towards the still burning shop stops that line of thought in its tracks).

He was going to go to Alpha Centauri but he needs to sort out his feelings first. He feels as though he's feeling too much, and at the same time, not enough for the situation because surely, surely if he'd loved Aziraphale he'd be feeling like his entire world is falling apart, and it would somehow all be more. Instead, he thinks about how he misses his smile and those small rebellions he could be tempted into. It's not as much about the angel himself, he thinks, it's about his habits and the small miracles he'd do to help humans and the fact that they will never happen again. That's not the way you're supposed to feel in this situation, he thinks, and he tries to get drunk because he wants to feel more and less and he's so confused and he doesn't like it.

Aziraphale comes back and the apocalypse almost happens.

("I'll never talk to you again" feels like a stab to the chest, painful, but bearable, but he's used to this planet and he's lost Aziraphale once and doesn't want to do it again, regardless of the fact that he still doesn't know what he feels for him. He stops time and it all somehow, miraculously, works out.)

They're on the bus and Aziraphale is half asleep (angels don't sleep, what bullshit, his angel clearly does), and he's leaning on Crowley's shoulder and he thinks that yes, this is what he needs right then and there. He doesn't know what he wants from his angel even sixty centuries after they've met, apart from the fact that he wants to keep him close. He wants Aziraphale to never leave. He thinks back to those adamant denials he's heard so many times over the last few centuries - "I don't like you" - "We are not friends" - "You're a demon" and thinks that maybe he's not the only one who's confused. He rests his head on Aziraphale's, who is now softly snoring, and realises that whatever it is they have doesn't need to be named, labelled or classified, by demon, human or angel standards if they're now none of those things.

Demons can't love, he thinks. But it doesn't mean that they can't feel some kind of affection for others. It doesn't mean he won't fight for what he wants. It doesn't mean that he won't burn the world, the universe, and every army above and below just to keep his angel safe.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, please leave feedback :)


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